Ten photos mainly
taken by Betty Nolan are posted at www.kodakgallery.com
in an album entitled “Ireland
– 2010” under the account of Lewis “Buzz” Nolan’s email address. Email lewis_nolan@yahoo.com for instructions
on how to access.

After nearly a week into this trip with my wonderful and
loving wife, Betty, our return to my favorite spots in Ireland is shaping up to be among
our best vacations ever.

Betty Nolan in
display boat made of stone on Promenade at Dingle Harbor

I was reminded of a pithy saying about a lucky man like me
who is firmly and totally committed to a successful marriage like our 41 years
together.

“The man gives a little sperm. The woman gives him a
wonderful child and raises the son or daughter to be outstanding.

“The man brings home common plant foods and animal meat. The
woman uses it to make memorable meals.

“The man buys a house. The woman turns it into a beautiful
and comfortable home.

“If the man gives the woman a little shit, she gives it back
to him by the truckload.”

As always, our breakfast buffet this morning was outstanding
in terms of quantity and quality of foods. I again had slices of Irish bacon,
two poached eggs, brown bread with Irish butter, a few slices of cantaloupe, a
banana, small glass of tomato juice and three, dried prunes. With the help of
hotel desk clerk Breda, we made a tee time for me at CheannSibeal Golf Club (also known as Dingle Links) for
10:30 a.m. That gave us time to enjoy breakfast, make a leisurely drive to the
club. Also known as Dingle Links, it is near Ballyferriter
and on the Irish coast, I wanted to practice my very rusty putting before
teeing off my first ball.

It was a promising day, unusually nice for this time of year
on the Irish coast. Despite a generous gathering of clouds near the horizon, it
was sunny around Dingle and the temperature was expected to reach 60 degrees or
so. The expectedwind were gentle to
moderate. Worth noting is the fairly simple mathematic formula to convert the
Irish use of temperatures reported in Celsius/centigrade to the American-style
Fahrenheit: First multiply the reported C. number times 9 and divide that total
by 5. Then add 32 to that sum to get the temperature in F. degrees. Remember
the disparity in numbers is due to the enormous changes in the C versus F
freezing points for water of zero for C versus 32 degrees F and the boiling
points of 100 C versus 212 F. Put simply, a reasonably comfortable day would have
a C temp of about 17 versus an F temp of about 60.

The current manager of the CheannSibeal Golf Club is Irishman Richard Fahey, who has held
the position for about six years. The previous manager, John ‘Dionny’ O’Connor, whom we remembered as being typically
warm and just as professional as his successor, was a member of the vast
O’Connor clan on the DinglePeninsula.

The club describes itself as “the most westerly golf course
in Europe.” It is 120 miles, or 193 kilometers
from Shannon and 220 miles, or 352 kilometers from Dublin. But it was a fairly short drive of
only 1 ½ miles or 2.4 kilometers from the village of Ballyferriter.

A club brochure says that at 6,737 yards, the 18-hole,
Par-72 course off the Blue Tees is “one of the truly traditional links. Each
hole is full of tricky undulations and swales, the very building blocks of pure
links, with hazards laid down long before the game of golf was dreamt of,
including a winding “burn” (local term for small stream) that twists and turns
through the entire course. Known as the St. Andrew of the south west, and
situated in one of the most spectacular locations in Europe, it’s magical and
mystical qualities will make your round of golf one you will never forget. .
.As you play, the whole panorama of the Dingle Peninsula is revealed – hills,
mountains and the Blasket Islands out there in the
wild Atlantic.”

The only negative that I detected – other than the course
distance and the sometimes hidden burn dug out beneath the playing level to be
winding all over the course with steep-sided banks made of timber or stone –
was a somewhat offensive smell. It turned out to be livestock and manure odor
from nearby sheep and diary cattle farms next to distant portions of the
course.

A hole-by-hole guide to the course is reproduced in an
earlier travelogue about our 2003 visit to the Dingle area. It is at http://www.lewisnolan.com/nolantravels2/3ding6.html.
The playing tips are taken from a pocket guide I purchased that included hole
maps and distances.

Of course, I’m almost 67 years old now and not nearly as
proficient at golf as I was when I was a young man. This was the first full,
18-hole round of golf I’ve played in more than 4 years because of health
reasons. But I was feeling pretty good and had rented what appeared to be a
very decent set of clubs from the pro shop. Plus, Betty had agreed to drive the
motorized cart so I could concentrate on somehow recovering as much of my game
as I could. It was a wonderful day, with beautiful sights, a few pretty good
shots and a fair amount of walking to look for my ball hit by mistake into the
rough and hazards.

I mainly played off the blue tees, only going forward to the
white tees on a few extra-long holes. It surprised me that I actually hit some
fairly good shots. Nevertheless, I miss-hit any number of balls that would have
been lost had it not been for Betty’s sharp eyes and physical ability to
scramble around the rough and sometimes steep stream beds.

My round was totally missing even a single par. Birdies and
better were just simply way beyond my dormant golf game at this period of my
life. But it was a lot of fun, especially because I was with Betty, who in her
own quiet way was encouraging and supportive. Luckily, we had nobody in front
of us slowing us down or nobody behind us pushing me to speed up my
deliberative game.

I found myself getting angry at times with my own lousy
shot-making (squirting the ball off the clubface at a sharp angle on several
drives and topping the ball on several fairway shots). But I managed to avoid
throwing clubs or other acts of a much younger man’s temper tantrum – probably
with much of the calming credit due to Betty’s steady encouragement.

Golf shop manager Fahey was nice enough to provide some
slightly used golf balls in my rental bag. In all, I lost 9 balls, including 3
brought from home. While there were no trees on the links course, the
steep-banked stream “ate” several balls and others were lost in the high rough
of long turf and yellow-blooming, wild gorse shrubs.

Thanks in part to some putting before the round and several
remedial sessions at the Galloway practice
green near my home, my putting was fairly decent. I took 20 putts on the front
half of the course and the same number on the back side for a total of 40. I
only hit a very few greens in regulation and ended up with a total score of 52
on the front and 52 on the back for a grand total of a miserable 104. My score
was boosted considerably by a 10 I took on Par 5 No. 13. But had it not been
for Betty’s great ball-finding (and propensity to toss found balls from high
rough onto the short rough or fairway), my score could have been much higher.

But it was an enjoyable round and I very much hope our
future travel will bring me back to CheannSibeal.

I learned that I really must spend a good chunk of time at
and near Galloway at home to practice my short
game and putting. I must also regularly take advantage of the Putt-PuttPracticeRange’s special prices
for seniors to hit a lot of drives and mid-irons and up if I’m ever to get my
score near where it was in the 1990s and early 2000s. (Actually, I did practice
some immediately upon our return and somehow managed a 43 on the back 9 holes
of the much easier Galloway Golf Course in Memphis, with several pars and one lucky
birdie.)

At the conclusion of my round at CheannSibeal, Betty and I repaired to the upstairs
clubhouse lounge where I enjoyed two cold drafts of the German Heineken Beer,
served by a bartendernamed John. Betty
had a pot of hot tea.We watched a few
players walk the course from the big windows overlooking the opening holes and
closing holes.

After a hot shower and a short nap back at the Dingle Skellig Hotel, we enjoyed another great dinner in the Coast
Guard Restaurant. I had a dish of broiled Monkfish served in a tropical fruit
sauce and shared with Betty a small platter of steamed broccoli and snow peas
plus a bit of baked sweet potatoes and Irish brown bread. She also had fish,
mainly due to her fear that the cattle rounded up near the hotel might have
been slaughtered and served in the restaurant. Due to my thirst from the 3 ½
hours on the golf course, I also enjoyed glasses of Harp Lager and Guinness Stout
plus a small glass of Australian Chardonnay.